The Duchess of Cornwall Recommends "Heart-breaking" Novel Where The Crawdads Sing
Since the Duchess of Cornwall released her lockdown reading list last year, she has been contacted by people from all over the world wanting to share their thoughts and book recommendations. And now, Camilla is highlighting four titles every eight weeks in a bid to continue sharing her enjoyment of reading with others.
The latest work to be the focus of her Instagram-based book club is best-selling novel Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens, which tells the story of young Kya Clark growing up alone in the marshes of North Carolina. “All is not as it seems in this beautifully written, heart-breaking coming-of-age novel. I couldn’t put it (or my handkerchief) down!” the Duchess says about the book. For her part, author Owens has shared thoughts on the story, which is her debut novel.
“When I wrote Where the Crawdads Sing I had a particular story in mind that I wanted to tell,” Owens says in a video shared with T&C (above). “After studying wildlife in Africa for 23 years, I had learned how much human behavior is still similar to the behavior of wild animals. So, I wanted to write this novel that it would explore how much we can learn about human behavior, and how much we learn about human nature from nature itself.”
Owens adds that she included “a lot of different traits” and “different behavior patterns” in her characters, saying, “I wanted to include some of these behaviors that we still exhibit like wild animals.” Describing the book as spanning multiple genres, Owens says: “I don't know of anybody's life that is just a love story, or just a mystery. Most people’s lives include a lot of different aspects, so I think it was fairly realistic that way.”
Where the Crawdads Sing is the second book to be featured on The Duchess of Cornwall’s Reading Room. The first was Hilary Mantel’s The Mirror and The Light. The final two books which will be highlighted in season one of the book club are Restless by William Boyd and The Architect’s Apprentice by Elif Shafak.
The Duchess of Cornwall, who married into the royal family in 2005, has long used her platform to advocate for literacy charities and organizations. In a recently-released video she described reading as a “passion,” adding that once the lockdown began she “saved up all the books I wanted to read and sat down and read them.” She concluded, “You know, whatever other awful things came out of lockdown I think reading has come out extremely well and I think it’s revived and we just want to keep that going.”
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